PUBLIC FORUM NOT COINCIDENCE.

Re ``Governor's vetoes follow money trail'' (Viewpoint, Oct. 10):

Thomas Elias shows a link between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's vetoes of certain bills and his campaign contributions.

I noticed when the governor vetoed a bill allowing the state to assist citizens to buy prescription drugs from Canada, the legislative sponsor of the bill stated that the only person to receive more pharmaceutical money was President George W. Bush, whose administration tries to ban the importation of prescription drugs from Canada. I would tend to believe that the link is no coincidence.

- Norwood Price

Burbank

Hardly cozy, quiet

Re ``Neighborhood temple opposed'' (Oct. 10:

I am deeply disappointed in the West Hills residents who oppose the Sephardic temple in West Hills. This particular temple is located on a very busy West Hills street that has commercial property interspersed with residential property. It is hardly a cozy, quiet little neighborhood.

This temple is not the only nonresidential entity on that part of the street. In fact, there are a church, a day-care center, a market, a gas station - need I go on? If disputes like this still exist here, how can we ever hope for peace in the Middle East?

- Stephanie Schiern

Woodland Hills

Capital offense 

Re ``Dog killing is owner's 'third strike''' (Oct. 9):

The beheading of a dog shouldn't be a Proposition 66 issue because it should be a capital offense. Anyone who would behead a dog deserves to be beheaded himself.

- Josh Rivetz

Northridge

Character test

Re ``Do the right thing'' (Editorial, Oct. 10):

I agree that we must act as a team when it comes to working through these times in which flu shots are limited. Being selfish and lacking common courtesy could cost someone's life, and it could possibly be a child's life that is lost. We are often tested in life. This is one of those tests. Will we pass?

- Brandon Montemayor

Newhall

Street racing

Re ``Take it to the track'' (Your Opinions, Oct. 11):

Kids have always raced on the streets, and making legal race tracks will not stop them from the spur-of-the moment impulse to do so.

- Martha Ballardo

Montrose

Good old days

Re ``Last civil host signing off'' (Viewpoint, Oct. 10):

When Ken Minyard and Bob Arthur started their morning news program in 1969, I was there preparing my children for school. I was there off and on from that point on. I was a member of what they called their Five O'Clock Club. They would give me bits of information and jokes that I could share during the day. I was the only one on the block who knew what ``antepenultimate'' meant. (We learned a word a day.)

For many years, I never knew the political leanings of Ken or Bob, and I liked it that way. Ah, the good old days when information was shared allowing you to formulate your own conclusions.

- Sue Prout

Van Nuys

Talk shows

I gave up on crude, inflammatory, repetitive talk shows - and the interminable commercial breaks. I lost my antenna more than a year ago, thanks to flying debris on Los Angeles freeways. Now I listen to books on tape, and the ride is so much nicer.

- Carol Hutchinson

Sunland

Like all the rest

Re ``Closing ERs'' (Your Opinions, Oct. 11):

The emergency room at Northridge Hospital is not closed. It is the Van Nuys campus that has closed the emergency room. I agree that we are losing too many hospitals and emergency rooms and trauma centers. I do not know what the answer is to remedy the situation, but something has to be done. The trauma center at Northridge hospital saved my life 11 years ago, and I would hate to see it or any other center have to close.

The tax increase that we voters passed to keep trauma centers open seems to be used for everything else but trauma rooms. It's like so many other taxes that have been misused. And I believe the tax increase proposed for telephone bills on the November ballot would be like all the rest: misused.

- Robert D. Hartzfeld

Van Nuys

Cops' work week

Seems Councilman Bernard Parks' mayoral platform centers strangely on the Los Angeles Police Department's flexible schedule, insisting it produces ``part-time'' cops serving three days a week instead of five like everyone else. He doesn't share all the facts, and the press never insists on them.

Under the 8/5 week, LAPD officers got one holiday a month, working 152 hours over four weeks. Under the misnamed 3/12, they give up holiday time and work 156 hours. Los Angeles gets more police coverage. Officers are happier. Most emergency services - police and fire - and their communities across the country enjoy the benefits of the schedule. Reinstitution of it is a major reason the hemorrhage of officers under Chief Parks was finally stopped.

- Richard Andert

West Hills

Measure A

Re county Measure A: Why would anybody vote for this? Increase sales tax by 0.5 percent. If you vote for this, you've got more money than I have. It takes only a general educational development or GED diploma to be a policeman. It takes five years of college to be a high school teacher, and, yet, a cop makes almost twice as much money. Insane. If we want more cops, then give all police agencies a 3 percent cut.

- Kenneth Johnson

Tujunga

Rush to war

It's preposterous to claim Sen. John Kerry and President Bush had the same information in weighing the decision to invade Iraq. Stifling dissenting and accurate intelligence about Iraqi aluminum tubes, unmanned aerial drones, mobile chemical labs, supposed purchases of yellowcake from Niger in the rush to war: All that was the product of the White House, as was the hype of the corresponding false data.

We - the people, including Congress - were lied to, and the liar-in-chief was George W. Bush.

- Alan and Precy Benson

Newbury Park

Incredible statement

Re ``Black and white'' (Oct. 6):

In the debate between Richard Cheney and John Edwards, one of Edwards' erroneous statements referred to the income tax on dividends. Edwards said that wealthy people pay a lower tax rate on dividends than our military service personnel pay on their salaries.

It would be hard to believe that a millionaire attorney like Edwards does not know that the 15 percent tax on dividends is the second of two tax rates that are applied to the same corporate income. The combined effect of the 35 percent corporate income tax rate and the 15 percent on dividends distributed is just over 44 percent. But that was just another of Edwards' and Kerry's incredible statements.

- Victor N. Viereck

Valley Village

Cheney's denial

Re ``Black and white'' (Oct. 6):

It's sad and frightening that Richard Cheney, the person who is a heartbeat away from the most powerful position in the world, is someone who distorts the truth with such conviction.

To deny, as he did in the debate, that he and members of his team are implying a connection between the Iragi regime and 9-11 is to deny a blatant fact. I, for one, resent this kind of misdirection.

- Frank Millar

Thousand Oaks